Young Slovakian Peter Sagan won the fifth stage of the Tour of California ahead of Australian Michael Rogers, who seized the overall leader's yellow jersey from American David Zabriskie.The stage was marked by a crash involving American Lance Armstrong, who was forced to withdraw from the race.Armstrong received a cut under his left eye that required eight stitches and suffered a severely bruised left elbow, his RadioShack team said.

Slovakian Peter Sagan of Liquigas won the eighth and penultimate stage of the Tour of Switzerland, a 167.3km ride between Tubach and Schaffhausen Saturday.Sagan dominated a small bunch sprint following a frenetic final 25 km in which a split in the peloton left many top sprinters, including Britain's Mark Cavendish of HTC-Highroad, trailing behind.Italian Damiano Cunego had been part of the front chasing group and finished with the bunch to retain the race leader's yellow jersey ahead of Sunday's final stage, a 32.1 km time trial around Schaffhausen.

American Tyler Farrar of Garmin-Cervelo celebrated Independence Day in perfect style on Monday, by outsprinting the peloton to win the third stage of the Tour de France.World champion Thor Hushovd of Norway retained the race leader's yellow jersey.Farrar timed his run-in to perfection, shadowing Hushovd's break in the final 1km of the 198km run from Olonne-sur-mer to Redon and kicking with 150m to go to complete the stage win in 4hr 40min 21sec.French rider Romain Feillu and Spanish champion Jose Joaquin Rojas were second and third in the stage.

La Farrapona (Spain) (AFP) - Alberto Contador moved a huge step closer to his third Tour of Spain victory as he saw off Britain's Chris Froome to win a gruelling 160.5 km stage from San Martin del Rey Aurelio to La Farrapona on Monday.

Logroño (Spain) (AFP) - Germany's John Degenkolb won for the third time on the Tour of Spain as he triumphed in a sprint finish on the 166.4km 12th stage around Logrono, whilst Spain's Alberto Contador maintained his overall lead on Thursday.

Slovakian youngster Peter Sagan of the Liquigas team won the shortened third stage of the Paris-Nice race in central France here on Wednesday.Germany's Jens Voigt (Saxo Bank) assumed the overall leader's yellow jersey after finishing fourth in the 153-kilometre ride, which had been cut by 50km due to snow."I hesitated at the end between wanting to pull clear of the peloton and really trying to win the stage," said Voigt.

New Zealand's Greg Henderson took the overall lead from British teammate Ben Swift in the Tour of California cycling race by capturing a windy and crash-filled second stage.Team Sky's Henderson, who began the day 10 seconds behind stage one winner Swift, sprinted to the front in the final 500 meters and captured the 196.2-kilometer stage in 5hrs, 14mins, 29secs.With 10 seconds of bonus time for winning the stage, Henderson seized the overall lead based upon tie-breakers with Swift second and Slovakian Peter Sagan of Liquigas-Cannondale third, four seconds adrift.